Sunrise Reflections
by ncfan
Summary: -Minato x Kushina- Twenty-one meetings at sunrise.


**Characters**: Minato, Kushina**  
>Summary<strong>: Twenty-one meetings at sunrise.**  
>Pairings<strong>: MinaKushi**  
>Author's Note<strong>: No rescue romance, okay? I can't degrade myself quite enough to write it in; it just goes against everything we know about Kushina. So I guess this is a bit AU in other ways as well; I hope you guys like it, regardless.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Naruto.

* * *

><p><em>i.<em>

Kushina tells her son, one day in a shadow world, that she and his father met at school. It's a lie. A well-meaning, embellished lie, but still a lie, plain and simple, and though Naruto will never know it, Kushina and Minato know each other long before either one of them enter the Academy.

(_There are many more lies than that; Kushina puts up a brave face for Naruto because he is her son and she can already see that his confidence has taken a beating over the years, but life has not been, nor will it ever be especially kind to her. Part of what has endeared Minato so much to her is that he can see it.)_

Minato's eight and a bit busy running away from the guys at the orphanage again. He runs away a lot, in fact. He liked it better when he was on the run in Tsuchi no Kuni when he was little, because at least then no one was trying to enforce a curfew. Then, the Hokage had to go and share a sandwich with him and…

Well, that's another story.

Anyway, Minato's plan is to sneak back in around suppertime; things get so hectic around suppertime that no one will notice him.

He's heading towards his favorite food stand (one that sells soba; the vendor lets him have it for free since he knows he can't pay) when Minato comes across _that_ house.

Uzumaki Mito lives in one of the poorest districts of Konoha in a tiny little bungalow, even though, as far as Minato knows, she's a nobly born woman from an old clan; all he can guess at the reason for her apparent poverty is that she's possibly been disowned or her clan has been disgraced. He's seen her occasionally, working with pliers in the garden—an extremely elderly woman with white hair and a bent back; her clothes are too fine for working in gardens, which makes Minato wonder, again, what she's doing living in such a rundown house when she's so obviously not from an impoverished background. Minato has never spoken to Mito; no one does, and Minato follows suit even if he doesn't know why. This house is avoided by all.

That's why he can't help but notice when he sees someone who is definitely _not_ Mito sitting on the stoop, barely visible between the highly overgrown rose bushes.

A little girl, younger than Minato, maybe five years old, sits on the stoop, singing absently in a language he can't understand. She has long, violently red hair and pale skin; he can't see the color of her eyes from where he stands.

She never looks up, and she never notices him. Instead, she plucks petals off of a crimson rose, face abstracted. She looks… troubled, just a little bit, or maybe just lonely; Minato can't tell.

For a moment, he considers walking up and talking to her.

But then, Minato's stomach growls at him and he obeys its call. All he thinks about as he leaves is the acknowledgement, however absent, that she has a pretty singing voice.

_ii._

(Talking comes a year and a half later.)

Kushina is six when she is made to take on a burden no one should ever have to bear and a monster is put inside her belly. It's not a coincidence that this is around the time that Mito, Kushina's only caretaker, dies as well.

_They killed her… They killed her… They killed her, and they put a monster inside me…_

Not being overly grateful and thankful that she has been allowed to stay in Mito's house after the old woman's death like the Konoha council expected, Kushina demanded, to their faces, to be allowed to go home as only the daughter of Uzushiogakure's leader could.

"_Let me go home!" Kushina screams at them, feeling the rage come over her and starting at its new intensity._

_She has been angry before. Kushina has a short, burning fire of a temper and she has known anger before._

_But not like this. Not so dark. Not so evil._

_The woman, Koharu, is the one who responds, and she laughs, unkindly. "Why would we do a thing like that? You are bound to Konoha now, inextricably. Why on earth would we _ever_ let you go?"_

The Hokage is only a little kinder.

_All Kushina register as the Hokage gets down on his knees in front of her is that at least _he_ isn't too proud to get on eye level with a child. "Kushina…" His voice is gentle, even a little sad, and suddenly, Kushina just wants to kill him; again, she has no idea where these emotions are coming from and will only realize later that the Kyuubi's influence has made her range of emotions more extreme. "You must not tell anyone that the Kyuubi has been sealed inside of you. It would only put you in danger. Do you understand?"_

Don't you think you've put me in enough danger already, old man?

_But Kushina nods._

_So she can't even share the burden with another, as Mito could with her._

_And Kushina knows that thanks to this, she'll likely spend the rest of her life terrified that someone might find out._

Jinchuuriki. What an ugly word.

Now, Kushina is sitting on the stoop of Mito's house, not caring that it's cold out and the wind is biting her skin.

She's still in so much pain; the sealing causes agony and she can still feel it sending out ripples through her. She can barely breathe; her chest hitches with sobs and her throat flutters with cries as tears hit the ground. Kushina can't remember having ever cried like this, not even when the Leaf nin came to take her from her home—_because then, then she thought it was just going to be a short trip_—but she just feels so _dirty, _so violated and unclean. It hurts, her skin, her muscles, her very _bones _hurt.

And there's a voice now. A guttural, inhuman voice grating on her thoughts.

Kushina can't remember having cried so hard in her life. That's probably why she doesn't hear him coming.

"Hey."

All Kushina can think when she looks up and sees the older boy standing over her is mortification that she's been caught with wet cheeks and bloodshot eyes. Her thin lips start to form a snarl when he sits down beside her and, in a bold move, pulls a bit of hair back from her head so he can see her face.

There's only concern on the fair-haired boy's face and only concern in his blue eyes, and when Kushina sees just how piercing his gaze is, brow drawn up, a tinge of red, deeper than the spots brought on by weeping, appears in her cheeks.

"What's up?" he asks, patting her shoulder apprehensively.

Kushina doesn't answer, nearly swallowing her tongue in the effort to keep from telling this impertinent little boy _exactly _what's up.

When she doesn't answer he starts to look at her oddly and she knows exactly what he's thinking: He thinks she's a bit slow. Now, she doesn't just want to give him a tongue-lashing; she wants to hit him, too. "My name's Namikaze Minato; I live at the Orphanage. What's yours?"

Well… That's a little better than what Kushina expected. She decides to speak to this boy. "Uzumaki Kushina," she mutters, not looking at him and trying desperately to dry her cheeks; the blow to her self-image sustained by this boy watching her cry has effectively stopped her weeping.

His eyes widen a little. "I've seen you around. Uzumaki, huh? So you're Mito-obasan's… granddaughter, I'm guessing?"

Kushina shrugs. "Something like that. And you address her as Mito-_sama_," she says more sharply. "Show proper respect."

Minato raises his hands in a placatory gesture. "Okay, okay, 'sama' it is. So where _is_ Mito-_sama_?" he asks, eyebrow raised. "I don't think your grandmother would just let you cry on her stoop all by yourself, especially not as cold as it is." Minato himself is wearing a threadbare jacket, and he looks at her knee-length pants dubiously.

"She's dead," Kushina says flatly.

The fair-haired boy winces. "Oh…" He's cringing now and Kushina wants to wring his neck; _Act like a man… _"…I'm sorry. Is… that why you were crying?"

Kushina doesn't feel she has to dignify that nonsensical question with a response.

"Umm… Do you want to go get some soba?" Minato asks too brightly, grinning hugely at her.

For a moment, Kushina stares, struck speechless for perhaps the only time in her life. No one's _ever_ asked her to spend more time with her than they had to before; no one's _ever_ asked her if she wanted to go somewhere with her. "…Sure," she replies slowly, narrowing her eyes.

After about an hour has passed and Kushina has breakfast in her stomach, she feels a little better and decides that this boy probably isn't just trying to lead her on.

(_Saying that Mito told her about love and security and happiness just before she became a jinchuuriki was a lie too. Mito told Kushina nothing of the sort. Instead, Kushina gets those ideas when Minato smiles at her and passes her a bowl of soba._

_Just because she's a jinchuuriki and Mito's dead doesn't mean she has to be miserable.)_

_iii._

Kushina, not having much of a social life throughout early childhood, often gets up before dawn to go practice with kunai and shuriken on the Academy training grounds. Minato, who has the advantage of three years on her, is still outdoing her on accuracy and she vows that _this_ time when Takeshi-sensei has the students test out their accuracy, she will _not_ lose to that irritatingly calm boy.

It's all perfectly friendly rivalry, of course.

Eventually, there's about a dozen kunai and shuriken wedged deep into a training post, all near or on the center of the bull's eye, and Kushina's collapsed, panting, against the post.

Then, someone blocks out the sun, and Kushina looks up.

In an expression Minato often finds himself wearing these days, he stares down at her, a little perplexed. "Uh… Kushina…"

Kushina grins. "Look," she pants. "I didn't even miss once this time."

"Yeah… That's great, Kushina… But…" He sticks a hand in his pocket and looks off in another direction.

"But _what_, Namikaze?" Kushina can't help but snarl.

He winces. "Yeah… Kushina, you do realize it's Saturday, don't you?"

The color drops out of Kushina's face. "What?" _Oh my God, I completely forgot. I just spent all that time mauling a hunk of wood when I could have been sleeping in; I am so stupid. Stupid!_

For the first time, Minato smiles, albeit a little uncertainly. "You aren't going to start crying on me again, are you Kushina?"

The infamous little girl from Whirlpool feels her blood start to boil. In a situation like this, Kushina can think of only one appropriate response.

She hits him, then makes Minato go buy her soba for breakfast.

It's his fault, anyway.

_iv._

Minato makes chunin at twelve—_it's not the Chunin Exams because they're still at war and Chunin Exams aren't held during war; the Hokage just hands out field promotions to anyone he thinks has earned it_. He rides off the high for weeks and Jiraiya bursts out laughing every time he shows off his vest to someone he knows. The funk he fell into after his teammates were killed has long since been washed away.

Two weeks after Minato is made chunin, Kushina and her team finally return from the front lines on the Kaze no Kuni border.

It's early morning when Minato spots a familiar head of violent red hair. He doesn't know anyone in Konoha who has hair quite like hers, and Hyuuga Hizashi is with the three small genin anyway.

"Hey, Kushina!" Minato shouts ecstatically from where he's haunting the ramen bar with Jiraiya. "Guess what?"

Kushina turns round, her violet-gray open wide in curiosity. "What?" she shouts back.

"Look at my Brand. New. _Vest_!" Minato laughs in triumph and points at his green chunin vest.

His bubble is abruptly burst when Kushina smirks at him and points at her own torso. "Don't get too cocky, blondie—" for a nine year old girl, Kushina doesn't really _talk _like a nine-year-old girl; Minato suspects it's because she spends most of her time around her teammates (who are both Minato's age) and grown men; Hizashi doesn't really talk like that but others do "—'cause I've got one too."

And, lo and behold, Kushina is wearing a green chunin's flak jacket of her own.

She's been made a chunin at the age of _nine_.

Minato can only cross his arms and shake his head disbelievingly. "Kushina, I'm sure I'm not the first to tell you this, but you _suck_."

Kushina only laughs. "Be a man and do something about it, Minato."

After she, Hizashi and the others are gone, Jiraiya looks up from his ramen. "Now, Minato, you aren't going to let a little girl outdo you, are you?" The gleam in his eyes is one of absolute evil. "Especially not a little midget brat like Uzumaki Kushina?"

Minato's really too mild to form a serious rivalry with anyone. But he wishes to God that Kushina could have waited just a few more weeks before she was made chunin. He wanted to brag to an appreciative audience.

_v._

Minato's fourteen when he finds out just how utterly insane Kushina is. It's not like he didn't know she was crazy already but really, it was just an absent awareness before now. Sort of something he took for granted, like _"Of course Kushina's crazy; she's _Kushina_."_

Now, he's getting a full dose of it in the restaurant, and to judge from their faces, so are the rest of the patrons.

"Oh yeah!" She's got one foot on the table and _that _action, Minato is sure, breaks every single rule of table etiquette in the book. "Those loser Rock nin couldn't beat me, 'cause I'm—"

"—absolutely, friggin' insane," Shikaku finishes for her, and Inoichi, Choza, and even their mild-mannered, polite sensei Dan have to agree. Hizashi and Kushina's teammates look embarrassed to even know her and all Minato and Jiraiya can do is gape.

Really?

"Kushina, get down from there," Hizashi mutters, putting a hand on his forehead in a vain attempt to rub the headache away.

"Oh come on!" Kushina protests, her wide eyes sparkling. "You've gotta admit, I was—"

At that point all Kushina's boasting is cut off by Hizashi reaching forward, putting his hands firmly around her waist and pulling her back down onto the bench. "Yes, yes, you were very good, Kushina." She grins and giggles a little bit. "But I think the patrons want to eat in _peace_, and they can't do that if you're shouting all the time."

She blushes, embarrassed. "Oh… Right… Sorry, Hizashi-sensei."

Dan laughs quietly and Jiraiya snorts. "She's energetic, this little kunoichi of yours Hizashi."

"_Very_ energetic," Hizashi fervently agrees.

One gets the impression that Hizashi is just a touch overwhelmed by Kushina. Minato can't really blame him.

Sitting straight across from her, Minato stares at Kushina.

Her face tinges red again under his scrutiny. When Minato thinks of it, that's actually kind of cute. "Yes?" she asks, raising an eyebrow.

"Nothing," Minato squeaks, looking away. Suddenly, he finds himself terrified that Kushina's craziness might rub off on him.

Or something like that.

_vi._

At fifteen, Kushina doesn't consider herself a child anymore. Not when she gets the news.

She doesn't live in Mito's house anymore. She hasn't lived there for three years, and for the memories that have been fostered there—_long nights alone, the heating dying in the middle of winter or the air conditioning dying in July, hearing nothing but the Kyuubi cooing (Kushina had no idea a bijuu could "coo" before the Kyuubi did it, trying to persuade her to remove the seal), and wondering just when the morning will come_—Kushina doesn't think she will ever go back. The place is overgrown and dilapidated now; the rose bushes have all but engulfed it. Within another two or three years, Uzumaki Mito's old home will be reclaimed by nature, and forgotten. And Kushina isn't doing anything about it.

Now, she lives in a ground apartment, a relatively nice place, in downtown Konoha. She sits on her stoop every morning to watch the sun rise (Kushina has learned to be an early riser and enjoy it), and it's a decent routine, she has to admit.

This morning, already fully dressed with her hitai-ate drawn about her brow, Kushina can't bring herself to smile in the face of the pale yellow light of morning.

If she lets her mind wander for even a moment, she can feel salt spray and the gentle crash of saltwater on her cheek again. She can smell salt and a fresh wind on her face, lifting her hair. She can feel water spilling over her feet, wet, soft sand squishing between her toes. And Kushina wants to be in that place again so badly, to again be in a place where she has never heard the word 'jinchuuriki', where she wouldn't know what that word meant if she was asked, where she could swim out into the ocean until her limbs wouldn't work anymore and just sink. Sink into the water beyond human memory, and go back to happiness.

Kushina can't do that. She can't go home again, and she especially can't go home now.

There's not a home to go back to.

This time, when Kushina is brooding it doesn't stop her from sensing Minato coming up the street. He's gotten the news, apparently and has come to find her. Damn that man and his kindness, damn that man and how he always seems to be concerned for her. Kushina doesn't need his worry, Kushina doesn't need his sympathy and she _especially_ doesn't need his pity.

She doesn't need the pity of Namikaze Minato. When he shows pity for her Kushina feels nothing but shame, nothing but pain.

But she doesn't send him away.

"Kushina."

She stares levelly at him, more calmly than Kushina ever thought she could be. Just last night, she destroyed the little gold hairpins Mito gave her for her birthday so many years ago in a rage. Just last night, she ripped apart her apartment and it's still in shambles, still a ruin and a monument to her rage and despair. Just last night, she screamed and howled and wailed and no one could hear her through the thick brick walls. And now, she feels as though her heart has turned into a lump of ice. "Minato," she responds evenly, inclining her head to him.

Minato's brow furrows and, tentatively, he reaches out and puts a hand on her shoulder. Kushina sucks in her breath sharply and he jerks his hand away.

"I… um… I heard…"

"Yes… I'm sure you did." Kushina's voice isn't inviting. Kushina's voice isn't the sort that encourages anyone to go on. But Minato doesn't seem to get the message and this is the moment when Kushina first thinks that he's worthy of being Hokage like he always claimed in the Academy, because he isn't afraid of anything. At least, he must not be, not if he's willing to walk up to Kushina the day after news comes that her home village has been completely and utterly obliterated.

Uzushio. Gone. Wiped off the map. All her buildings and lovely places razed, never to be seen again. Kushina feels as though her rage will boil over in her throat and the Kyuubi's voice in her ears is nearly deafening.

It takes a great deal of effort to hear Minato's voice over the Kyuubi's roaring.

"I'm… sorry, Kushina. I don't know what else to say."

Kushina hears herself responding, her mouth working of its own accord. "I haven't been there in ten years." _But I can still smell the sea in my nose every time I close my eyes._

"But still—"

"Save it, Minato," Kushina snaps.

He grimaces and stares at his hands, clasped on his knees. Sitting beside her on the stoop suddenly seems like a life-threatening occupation. "You wanna go get some soba?" Ramen may be Kushina's favorite food but soba makes everything better and they both know it. She doesn't answer; her shoulders start to shake. "Kushina…"

"No."

Minato puts his arm around her shoulders, and Kushina doesn't shake him away.

_vii._

Kushina meets Minato's team maybe a month after the death of Uzushiogakure and Uzu no Kuni.

She likes Rin. The girl doesn't interest her greatly; she's only nine, after all, and she has such a mild disposition that Kushina really doesn't have that much to say to her.

Uchiha Obito… Him, Kushina likes. They chatter for a few minutes, share opinions and glare simultaneously at Minato from time to time (the aforementioned sensei really starts to feel like he's being plotted against), and Kushina ruffles Obito's hair when she goes on to inspect Kakashi and he blushes and looks away. At _that_, Minato finds himself suppressing the highly irrational urge to glare at Obito.

As for Hatake Kakashi… Well, Kushina has her opinions on him, and she relates said opinions to Minato the next morning.

"Hatake's going to be a problem."

They've met up at Ichiraku's for breakfast like they normally do—they've been in this pattern for twenty days now and Kushina has finally accepted that it isn't the end of the world if Minato is worried about her on a consistent basis—and Minato avoids her gaze as he slurps on his noodles. "I know, Kushina," he responds and maybe, just maybe Kushina can discern a defensive note in his voice. Minato, Kushina is sure, has had this conversation with others before.

She curls her lip slightly. "I'm not sure you do, Minato. Let me spell it out: that boy is going to snap one day, and depending on how many people are nearby when it happens the results aren't going to be pretty." Minato's eyes show hurt and Kushina winces; she hadn't meant to elicit that sort of response. "I'm sorry. But you know I'm right."

"Kushina…"

"You _know_ I'm right," Kushina insists. "The boy found his father's body, didn't he?" Minato nods; everyone knows the story of Hatake Sakumo by now; he's been dead for three years, after all. "He was made a genin at five, and a chunin at six, right?" Again, Minato nods silently. "And he's been used as a soldier ever since?" Minato nods, unable to do anything else. Kushina sighs, and pinches the bridge of her nose. "There will be trouble, Minato. There always is when a child is used as a tool of war."

"How would you know—" Minato's voice is sharp, but Kushina isn't having any of it.

"Trust me, I know."

She wants to tell him. In this moment, Kushina finds she wants to tell him the truth more than she ever has before. The truth aches against her skin and she wants to tell Minato, if only to make him understand. Being a tool is something that weighs against the mind every second of the day. It never goes away and it gnaws into the being. It can drive one mad. Kushina is intimately aware of that.

Minato stares disbelievingly at her and she wants to scream at him _"Do you know what I am? Do you? Do you believe for even a second that I'm just one of the Leaf's charity cases? I am the jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi no Kitsune and I know what it's like to be looked at and seen only as a weapon! This will kill him and I am in a far better position than you to know!"_

She can't. She still can't. The Hokage's stricture is still over her and Kushina… Kushina is afraid. Afraid of what she stands to lose if she tells Minato the truth.

_He'll never look at me the same way. I can't-can't deal with that. I-I can't take that. Not him. Not him._

_viii._

"Kushina!"

Kushina looks up, startled, to spy out the identity of the man who has broken the silence of her morning routine. Just before six in the morning, the morning of July 10 is still cool, though Kushina is sure that the mercury will hit somewhere between 90° and 100° Fahrenheit before it gets to be noon.

Minato beams at her as he half-runs up the street and comes to a stop in front of her front stoop, holding two boxes in his hands. One is long, thin and rectangular; the other two are much smaller. All three are white and tied down with lengths of glittery red ribbon. "Happy birthday, Kushina," he says by way of greeting.

Red eyebrows rise. To be honest, Kushina doesn't think much about her birthday. She'd forgotten that her birthday was today and frankly she isn't entirely sure how Minato knows since she's never told him when her birthday is. Kushina decides that Minato's been going through her private records and makes a mental note to hit him later.

Without further adieu Minato sits down beside her and hands the two boxes to her, grinning even more exuberantly than before; Kushina has to smile at his sheer giddiness. Sometimes, Minato's cheer is just infectious. "I bet no one else has given you anything yet."

Kushina rolls her eyes. "It's five fifty-five in the morning; _of course_ no one else has been by yet. You and me are probably the only ones awake."

She smiles and he gestures to the boxes, clearly impatient for her to open them. Kushina laughs. "Okay, okay, Minato."

Biting her lip a little bit, Kushina slips her finger under the bow of the small box first, and pries off the top once it's undone. Two little gold clips twinkle in the early morning sunlight, nestled in a bit of Prussian blue satin, and Kushina smiles a little as she takes them into the palm of her hand.

Looking absurdly pleased with himself, Minato beams so brightly that he's in danger of eclipsing the sun. "Found them in a shop. You seemed to have lost that clip Mito-sama—" he's finally gotten to the point where he's calling Mito '-sama' instead of '-obasan' unconsciously "—gave you and these sort of looked like it."

Kushina is proud of the fact that she manages not to wince. Almost before she's allowed to put the little clips back in the box and put it aside Minato's waving the second, slightly larger box in her face. "Go on; open this next one."

She pushes his shoulder playfully. "If I didn't know better, Minato, I'd say you're getting more enjoyment out of this than I am." But Kushina goes on to the next box and undoes the ribbon.

This time, it's a tortoiseshell comb sitting on a bed of black satin, the teeth even, pristine and maybe two inches long, and Kushina's brow furrows. _Tortoiseshell doesn't come cheap. _Without Minato having to urge her on, Kushina moves onto the last, long box, slipping her finger under the ribbon with more than a little trepidation.

This last time, Kushina can't help but suck in her breath sharply.

_They're… so beautiful. _Two long, thin gold hairpins, about ten inches long with the same thickness as senbon, resting on royal purple satin. At the head of each there is a large, glistening white pearl, and hanging off the side by gold chain are three much smaller pearls, the same immaculate shade of white. A light touch tells Kushina that they're real.

"I'd looked at these pins with pink pearls but after I told the lady at the store that you had red hair she pointed me towards the white instead."

Kushina doesn't hear him. Instead, after doing some quick calculations in her head, she looks at the young man sitting beside her. "Minato," she says slowly, "where did you get all this?"

"Ameyoshi's, in the West End," Minato answers innocently.

No more calculations are needed. "Minato!" she gasps, scandalized. "Anything from Ameyoshi's costs a fortune! How much did you spend on all this?"

"There's no need for you to be knowing something like that," Minato responds hastily. "You don't turn sixteen every day, and I wanted to get you something special, regardless of the cost."

Kushina can… _respect_ that. Even if she still wants to call him a dope and send him home. _You know, Minato, you are just easy prey for gold-diggers; you should be glad I don't ask for expensive gifts_. There's something that still confuses her though. "Minato… Why did you get me all this stuff for my _hair_?" _Especially considering it's been well-established that I don't like my hair_, she adds darkly to her own mind.

Minato shrugs. "I did a little research. The women of Uzushiogakure don't cut their hair. And you never do anything with yours even though you're starting to trip over it."

A hot flush creeps up Kushina's neck. "I don't really bother with it all that much," she mumbles incoherently, not looking at him. "I don't like it."

"I don't see why not." Kushina's eyes snap to Minato, and he's smiling kindly at her. "You've got really pretty hair, Kushina."

Her cheeks go about the same shade as the aforementioned hair a split-second after he says that. Kushina isn't used to receiving compliments concerning her appearance, at least not since she left Uzushio. Here, she's more used to little kids pointing and giggling unkindly when they see her fiery hair, hiding their mouths behind her hands. She's more used to women tutting and shaking their heads as if someone they barely know has just died as the result of some drunken accident, wondering why on earth she doesn't just buy some hair dye because her hair is just _so_ atrocious.

Kushina's smile melts, and her blush only deepens. "Thank you."

Minato's grin grows just a little nervous.

Kushina stares down at the three boxes in her lap, and for the first time in her life she actually has the desire to do something with her hair. But only if Minato gets to see it.

_ix._

In the morning, when the sun is rising over a scene of destruction and lives cut to the quick during the night, Kushina stands among the bodies, and stares at the face of one that should have been as familiar to her as the back of her hand, and instead was a stranger up to the moment of death.

She and her ANBU squad had been sent out into the wilds in the north of Hi no Kuni because word had come that a group of Uzu refugees had been found and they were being attacked by Iwa nin. Given Konoha and Uzushio's close ties, it was considered only right to send a squad to help them.

How far awry that had gone. In the morning, when all is clear, Kushina can see that none of the Uzu refugees are still alive.

Her people. Her comrades. Some of them her kinsmen. And she couldn't keep a single one of them alive.

Not even _him_.

Short red hair, barely reaching to the chin, clings to his cheeks. His eyes, violet-gray, are open and glazed. The kunai's still in his hand; he could barely hold it, he was so weak from hunger.

Her shoulders start to shake, and Kushina grits her teeth to prevent the animal howl that would inevitably escape if her mouth was open. She hadn't even _recognized _him, not until her mask was knocked from her face and he said her name as he fell.

"_Kushina…" His voice is so deep now, and Kushina chokes on her tongue as she watches him hit the ground and finally understands why he seemed so familiar to her._

"_Arashi…" His voice is strangely calm but hers is anything but; high-pitched and cracking, not an ANBU kunoichi but a frightened teenaged girl. "…You… you shouldn't be here."_

_He doesn't answer, but only smiles as the blood makes it impossible to speak._

"Kushina…" She can't help but gasp when she feels a hand on her shoulder, reaching instinctively for the senbon at her waist.

It's only Minato. He's arrived with the support team, surveying the carnage, and his eyes are heavy and darker than usual. "What happened?" he asked quietly, shooting a gaze at the corpse before them.

So he's seen her staring.

Kushina can only manage the word "brother" before she starts to sob insensibly and Minato pulls her into his arms.

_x._

Kushina has often had the thought "_This is the worst moment of my life." _Formerly, she thought the worst moment of her life was finding her long-lost brother, only to lose him in the same breath.

Now, she thinks differently.

_This_ is the worst moment of her life.

The chakra burns hurt like hell—_so _this_ is what giving in to the Kyuubi is like_—and Kushina doesn't think she's ever been so tired in her life. She can't move, in fact. Her limbs won't work, and when she opens her eyes she can't see anything.

Sight returns to her in spurts. The first thing Kushina is aware of is that she isn't wearing her mask anymore; most likely, the glass shattered under the influence of the sheer heat of the Kyuubi's chakra. The second, is that the sun's peaking beyond the horizon; that, she figures, is the only reason she can see anything at all. The third, is that Minato is peering at her face, barely a foot away from her.

_Oh God._

_OhGodpleaseno._

Memory returns and Kushina's body is too wrung-dry of water for her to cry—not that her pride would have allowed it, if she could help it. He was there the entire time. He was present for the entire battle. He knows.

Minato is busy getting bandages out of his pack, now that she's awake. Neither of them have any idea how they're going to explain this to the support team that will no doubt find them soon.

"Minato, I…" Even though her throat is dry and her tongue feels like a hunk of dried-out charcoal, she can speak easily. It's just that Kushina can't find the words. Her heart starts to pound.

He looks up and smiles a little. "Ah, you're awake. I've got bandages, in case you're wondering."

"Minato, I…"

"Hold still." Minato's acting like he can't hear her and there's something entirely too casual about his demeanor as he bandages up her scorched arms.

Kushina's eyes fall beyond. She sees bodies. Bodies in ANBU uniform. Her open eyes squeeze tightly shut. "I killed them, didn't I?" No one's voice could be more flat; the effect is something akin to a corpse speaking, if a corpse could speak.

For the first time, Minato acknowledges that Kushina is speaking to him. Something like sympathy flares in the back of his eyes. "Yeah," he tells her gently. "You did."

Kushina nods and the action sends waves of pain through her body; she bites her tongue to keep from crying out. "That's what I thought." She looks at Minato warily. "Minato, I…"

"Quit saying 'Minato, I…'." So he has heard her after all. "There were rumors running around for years that the Kyuubi's jinchuuriki was a Konoha shinobi." Minato's eyes grow especially gentle as he puts a hand on Kushina's shoulder; she sucks in her breath (_Oh God, that hurts_) and he quickly removes it. "I don't give a damn if you've got a bijuu sealed inside your belly. You're still Uzumaki Kushina."

Kushina smiles weakly. What she doesn't know is that Minato's thinking that she's never looked quite so beautiful as when she's covered in chakra burns, her clothes have noticeably risqué burn holes in them and her smile is that of an utterly defeated but utterly relieved woman.

Maybe this _isn't_ such a bad morning for her.

_xi._

Minato isn't entirely sure how he and Kushina get to the "kissing" stage of their relationship but it comes the morning Kushina's let out of the hospital.

Her chakra burns haven't entirely healed and there are still pink patches across her arms and torso and legs and one in a particularly unattractive spot smack-dab in the middle of her forehead. Thankfully (or so Kushina says) her hitai-ate covers it up so she puts it on the moment she's out of sight of the medics. Much to the amusement of Minato, who hadn't been aware that Kushina actually had any level of vanity in her.

He's there when she's discharged from the hospital and insists on walking her back to her apartment despite Kushina's protests that she can get there by herself—Minato doesn't think it's a coincidence that she's been trying to get him out of her company, and he's wondering, seriously, what he's going to have to do in order to get Kushina to understand that he's not going to suddenly start treating her differently just because he's found out she's a jinchuuriki.

Well actually, yes, he's starting to think of Kushina differently now. He's thinking that she's a lot more controlled than he originally thought and he's beginning to speculate, uncomfortably, on just how much it cost her to keep that secret for so long.

And she's the bravest person he's ever met, but Minato already knew that.

Kushina's pressing open the door of her apartment, when she turns back around at the hip, and smiles. Minato wonders if she knows just how appealing she looks when she does that, what with all that hair cascading down her back, even if she is covered in healing chakra burns. "Listen, Minato… Thanks."

And it's just like that.

Minato thinks that this, _this _is the best moment of his life.

He's wrong.

The best moment of his life is when they're waking up in the same bed, two weeks later. Minato still can't believe his good luck and Kushina just starts roaring at him. He realizes after maybe five seconds that she's laughing at the expression on his face.

_xii._

Minato wakes up abruptly and when he feels the sun hitting his face like lapping water he remembers the horrific nightmare that jolted him awake.

Kushina covered in a noxious chakra. Her features growing more elongated and animal by the second. Her eyes enlarged, the irises red, the pupils down to slits. The nostrils larger, the nose longer, blunted. Lips turned black, canines grown long, mouth open unnaturally wide in a hideous grin.

Then memory hits him and Minato resists the urge to slap his forehead. It wasn't a dream.

Leaning on the tree trunk beside him, Kushina wakes up with a groan. "Chakra burns," he hears her muttering. "I _hate_ chakra burns."

Minato laughs weakly.

Kushina doesn't give him time to recover. "It was five tails this time, wasn't it?" she asks almost conversationally. Almost, but not quite; he can still hear the tension in her voice, clear as day.

A little stiffly—sleeping against the tree hasn't done much for his neck—Minato nods. "Yeah, it was five tails. The good news, though, is that all the enemy nin are dead and the village we were supposed to be protecting is safe."

"Uh huh." Kushina's tone indicates that she isn't entirely reassured. "Andddd? What happened _after_ I returned to normal, because the fact that I'm still here tends to lend itself to the belief that I did. I know I was conscious; I just can't remember it."

Minato rubs the back of his head nervously; it doesn't help that he can feel Kushina's eyes boring holes into the side of his head. "Yeahhh, about that…"

"Let me guess," Kushina flatly interrupts them. "You know what, Minato? I think I know exactly every word they said." Minato flinches. "And I don't even have to remember what happened to know how they reacted, because short of the village we protected being razed to the ground there's only one reason why we spent the night out here and _not_ in the village."

There's no arguing with logic like that.

"I cried my eyes out, didn't I?" Her voice is just as flat as ever and now there's another note. Kushina _really_ doesn't want to hear the answer to that question; personally, if she didn't want to hear the answer Minato doesn't think she should have asked. He's too honest a person (when not acting in capacity as a shinobi) not to tell her the truth.

"Yeah."

Kushina hides her face in her hands. "Oh, God, my reputation," she moans, and Minato can't help but find it interesting that Kushina seems to be more concerned by the fact that she cried in public than by the fact that she slipped into the five-tailed transformation.

"Kushina?"

"Yeah, Minato?"

"I will never know how much it cost you to keep that secret for so many years, will I?"

She shakes her head vigorously. "No, you won't, because I have no intention of ever telling you."

He laughs ruefully. "Yeah, that's what I thought. How do you stay so cheerful afterwards?"

At that, Kushina huffs, affronted. "The Uzumaki _don't_ angst," she sniffs loftily, sticking her nose straight up in the air. "It's beneath us."

Minato's laugh is absolutely raucous this time. "Kushina!"

"What?" she demands, every bit as affronted as before.

"You are completely out of this world, you know that?"

Kushina shrugs. "Yes," she replies demurely. "But thank you." Her face darkens. "Anyway, about the fox, I think I've got an idea of how I can keep this from happening again, at least for a few years anyway."

He perks up. "Go on."

"Okay, Mito-sama left notes behind, even if the seal she used to seal the Kyuubi within herself wasn't the same as what was used on me. Either way, the seal used to cage a bijuu within a host will start to degrade within ten to twenty years; it's inevitable regardless of the strength of the seal. The clincher? I found something in Mito-sama's notes about _reinforcing_ the seal. It's not a permanent solution, but…"

_xiii._

"Oh, he's so cute!" Kushina gushes to a highly nervous Hizashi, who's holding his newborn son in his arms. She doesn't ask about the child's mother and Hizashi is clearly grateful about that; he's been having to answer awkward questions about that since the child showed up on his doorstep three days ago. "What's his name?"

"Neji," Hizashi responds, managing a smile for his old student and finally beaming with pride.

Kushina frowns, perplexed. "You named him 'Screw'?"

Hizashi sighs. "When I named him 'Neji' I had the meaning of 'spiral' in mind. You know, like your surname, Kushina?"

"Oh!" Her face brightens. "You mean you named him after me? Sensei, that's so sweet!"

Hizashi sighs again.

Outside, where Kushina's voice is still perfectly audible and Hizashi's is… less so, Minato and Hiashi lean on the wall and listen to them talk. A small, delicate woman with blue-black hair who doesn't even closely resemble a Hyuuga smiles at Hiashi as she passes, carrying silks back towards the Main Branch compound; this, Minato assumes, is Hiashi's wife.

"Congratulations on the addition to your family," Minato says to the older man.

Hiashi nods and smiles slightly. "And I believe I owe you a congratulations as well, Namikaze-san. As I understand it, your submission of candidacy for the position of Hokage has been accepted."

"Yeah." Minato laughs nervously—he's been doing that a lot lately, ever since his candidacy was announced. "Here's hoping Orochimaru-dono doesn't murder me in my sleep in order to diminish the competition." Realizing that that particular comment is probably in bad taste, he goes on to add, "And here's hoping they don't think I'm a little kid in over his head."

Hiashi tactfully ignores the first comment and nods sympathetically at the second. "Your youth will not do you any favors." He peers curiously over at Minato. "Just how old did you say you were, Namikaze-san?"

"I'll be twenty-three in January. Kushina will be nineteen in four days." And for the life of him Minato has no idea why he thought it was necessary to include Kushina's age in that assertion.

The young Hyuuga clan head's lip twitches in what might be the beginning of a smile when he hears Minato include Kushina's age, but he does not comment on that and only nods. "I wish you luck, Namikaze-san, regardless."

"Thank you, Hyuuga-san."

_xiv._

Kushina swallows bile when she sees Kakashi's new, red eye. The Sharingan, and it won't deactivate. The Sharingan, pried from Uchiha Obito's eye as he laid dying crushed beneath a boulder.

It was supposed to be a simple mission.

Obito was supposed to come back happy and smiling, joking with Rin and trying to get Kakashi to crack a smile beneath his mask. He wasn't supposed to come home in Kakashi's left eye socket.

But when Kushina sees what's beneath that bloody bandage, and doesn't see a head of black hair, she knows exactly what has happened.

And she has only one thing to say to Kakashi.

The morning light is gray and wan as Kushina gets down on her knees, puts her hands on Kakashi's shoulders and stares up at him. "Kakashi, I have only one thing to say to you." He doesn't respond and Kushina doesn't expect him to; he looks dead, as close to dead as anyone breathing and standing can be. "Use Obito's eye well. If you don't and you die, Obito will haunt you for all eternity and I'll figure out a way to haunt you too, even though odds are I'll outlive you."

She doesn't look at Kakashi again; instead, Kushina turns her attention to Minato.

Yep. About as well as she thought he'd be. Grinning like an idiot when he sees her again, being cheerful with an unnaturally high-pitched voice. Oh, yeah, he's about five seconds from a nervous breakdown.

He manages to hold it in until Kakashi and Rin are at the hospital and he's safely in Kushina's apartment, where no one can see him.

That's when Kushina knows she has a great deal of work to do.

_xv._

The white and red robes smell like sandalwood, but that's to be expected; it's likely meant to overpower the smells of bleach and dye on the linen, and if that's the case, it's not entirely effective. Minato looks in the mirror speculatively as he tries on the hat, and he sees a new face there.

The old Namikaze Minato was a jonin who as a result of his aloofness attracted the attention of civilian women and repelled nearly all kunoichi—the kunoichi are smarter than the civilians and take that aloofness to be a sign of danger, even if it is a friendly bend of the trait. He ran missions, ate out with friends, and fought and killed enemy nin.

The new Namikaze Minato will officially be Hokage in five minutes. And he can't be the old Minato anymore.

"Minato, give me the hat. Hiruzen-sama has to put it on you once we get outside."

Except for one person.

It's rare to find Kushina in formal, confining dress, but that's how she's dressed today. A stiff, white silk kimono, done up with a wide gold obi and spangled with gold as well—thick silk to guard against the December cold. Her long scarlet hair's been bound high on her head, secured with the long gold pins Minato gave her for her sixteenth birthday. There's no other jewelry than that; Kushina doesn't really like jewelry all that much (apart from a black wooden bangle he's seen her wearing from time to time) and her ears aren't pierced.

Silently, Minato gives her the Hokage's hat, and Kushina smiles slightly, her teeth catching the early morning sunlight from the window. "The robes look good on you," she remarks. "You look handsome."

Minato looks away. "Thank you, Kushina." They can both clearly hear the clamor outside and far below. Konoha is waiting, and it won't wait for much longer. "I just wish—"

"Don't wish anything," she says more sharply, violet-gray eyes narrowing. "You're a man; act like it. And you're the Hokage now. You don't _wish_ for anything; you act, plan, and when that fails, you deceive. Obito… Obito, I'm sure, would have wanted to see this moment. But he wouldn't want you moping on the day of your induction as the leader of this village."

Her lips on his are warm and soft and, face still buried in his shirt, Kushina murmurs, "Come on; you need to get out there."

It's easier to do it with a smile on his face when she's with him.

_xvi._

It's in February that Kushina catches him one early morning as Minato's heading home; he's had a _very_ late night and he never got to go home last night.

"Minato." She's unnaturally pale, her clenched fists shaking slightly. "We need to talk. In private."

Minato frowns at her, concerned. "What's wrong, Kushina?"

"I'll tell you when we get inside, now move."

When they're in Minato's kitchen and she does tell him, Minato can only gape at her.

Two words. Two little words, and they're capable of disarming him completely. "I'm pregnant," Kushina half-whispers at him, sitting down at his kitchen table and wringing the fabric of her pants helplessly in her hands.

"You're what?" Minato whispers, and Kushina stares, white-lipped at him.

Then, he grins. "I'm going to be a father. We're going to have a kid." Minato can already picture it; a little girl with Kushina's bright red hair and his eyes, running around the village like crazy proclaiming herself the future Godaime Hokage. He can just see it.

His fantasies are so deafening that it takes him a little while to realize that Kushina's holding her head in her hands and bawling. As Minato attempts, in vain, to comfort her she sobs about how she never wanted kids (at least not until she was twenty-five and married, and maybe not even then) and how she's not going to be able to take missions for months and how much her back's going to hurt and a legion of other reasons _why she just hates Minato so, so much._

"I'm going to be a horrible mother," Kushina chokes between sobs, tears still hitting the floor thick and fast.

Minato crouches down and puts his hands on her shoulders. "No you won't," he reassures her, smiling. "You'll be a great mother, Kushina." He kisses the top of her head and Kushina half-removes her fingers from her eyes. "Now come get some sleep; you look tired."

_xvii._

It's not so easy to reassure her, though, and it's in April that Minato notices exactly to what extent that Kushina still frets and worries.

"Kushina." Minato can't remember the last time his voice was so sharp; it was probably when he noticed Kakashi's self-destructive behavior for the first time and this sharpness, he acknowledges, is for something similar. "You're not eating properly, are you?"

Lately, with her belly starting to expand and her clothes no longer fitting properly, Kushina has taken to wearing long, loose jumpers with a high-collared shirt beneath them even though she hates skirts and can't stand the way they make her feel. However, her loose-fitting clothes can't hide the fact that her bones are starting to jut from her skin at the shoulder blades and wrists. Her legs and arms that ought to be thickening during pregnancy have only grown thinner. Her cheeks are slightly hollow.

And Minato's noticed something else. As she grew into her teens, Kushina started paying more attention to the state of her hair, keeping it clean and sleek and such. Now, it looks like she's reverted to her old habits, because Kushina's hair doesn't look entirely clean and is noticeably lank.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Kushina remarks, reaching to putting his plate away.

Minato reaches out and catches her bony wrist before she can pull her just as bony arm away. "Sit down, Kushina. We need to talk."

Kushina rips her arm from his grip and snarls. "About what, Minato? I don't see a problem here. How much or little I eat is my problem and mine alone."

"Kushina…" The fear Minato catches in Kushina's eyes is real, and sternness won't work on her because she's an adult, not a child like Kakashi and her fear is different from Kakashi's obstinacy "…it matters if you're pregnant and carrying a child. You can't eat the same amount of food you did as before; you have to eat _more_ now, not less. It's only for nine—"

"—Ten," Kushina mutters, and his gaze snaps to her face.

"What's that?"

"It's ten months," Kushina mutters, almost inaudibly.

"Kushina, a full-term pregnancy lasts nine months…"

"Not if you're a jinchuuriki," Kushina snaps. "If you're a jinchuuriki, pregnancy lasts ten months because the bijuu interferes with the development of the fetus and slows it down."

Minato stares at her, suddenly feeling his mouth go dry.

"And do you know what else happens during a jinchuuriki's pregnancy, Minato? Her seal weakens." If Kushina hadn't had Minato's full attention before, she would have had it now. "If you'd been listening to the Kyuubi telling you how much it's going to enjoy eating your corpse once it gets loose, you wouldn't be able to eat right either."

"Since when have you ever let the Kyuubi push you around?" Minato protests, and Kushina sighs wearily and goes to sit on the couch.

"It's not that simple," and with that Minato's perched on the couch next to her, as she pushes her lank hair from her face. "I… can feel it growing stronger. I can feel the seal grow weaker. Just as my seal grows weaker as my pregnancy advances, I can't do anything about that. I can't risk reinforcing the seal. And… And…" Her face screws up "…there will be _effects_ on our son, by the Kyuubi's chakra I mean, regardless of what I try to do about it."

"What "effects"?" Minato asks warily.

Kushina smiles weakly. "You see this, _this_ is why I should have been taking contraceptives." Minato decides to chalk that comment up to her being distraught and doesn't take offense. "Our child may not end up exactly _normal_. The Kyuubi's chakra tends to have that effect on those who endure prolonged contact with it. God knows what it's doing to the baby as we speak."

Minato winces, sliding his hands around her shoulders. "Ah."

"Yeah," Kushina mutters, staring down at her feet. "Giving birth's going to be the riskiest time. That's when the seal's pushed to its breaking point."

"Oh. Great." Then, suddenly, Minato grins and Kushina looks up, surprised. "Well don't worry, Kushina. I won't let anything happen to your or the baby. Just promise me you'll start eating like you used to again." He doesn't mention her hair; knowing how sensitive women tend to be regarding their appearances, that probably wouldn't be a good idea.

Kushina can't help it. She smiles for the first time since she found out she was pregnant.

Come to mention it, she has been missing Ichiraku's.

_xviii._

"Will you marry me?"

He proposes marriage in May, and at first Minato can't understand why when Kushina immediately shakes her head and says no.

Kushina points to her stomach, now protruding noticeably from beneath her jumper, and raises an eyebrow. "Not until there's only _two_ of us in the wedding photo; I do _not_ want a belly when I'm wearing my wedding gown. Besides… It's going to look bad enough that the Hokage's marrying a woman with a newborn child. What's it going to look like if he's marrying a pregnant woman?"

Minato has to admit, she has a point.

He just wishes she hadn't put it like that.

_xix._

"Do you really think Naruto's such a good name?"

Minato's taken to staying over at Kushina's apartment, and when he starts to get up in the morning he abruptly realizes that naming his child after an ingredient in ramen might not the best idea after all. _What are the other kids going to think when he introduces himself? I can just see it now: 'Wow, your parents really aren't all that creative, are they?'_

Kushina is still lying in bed—she's learning to enjoy sleeping in and her eyes are screwed shut, even if she does hear him. "Yes," she murmurs, "I do. Now go to work so you can be Hokage and let me sleep. Your child keeps kicking me; I'm worn out, Minato."

The Yondaime Hokage laughs and kisses her hair before leaving.

_xx._

"So it'll be tonight?"

Kushina's brushing out her hair, clean and shiny again, when she looks up at Minato, who nods. Kushina frowns deeply, a storm emerging on her pale face, and Minato squeezes her free hand.

"Everything's going to be fine, Kushina. Come tomorrow morning the Kyuubi will be safely sealed and Naruto will be asleep in the crib."

_xxi._

But everything's not alright.

It's Kakashi who finds them the next morning. Sarutobi points him in the right direction and he leaves without waiting for the backup he dispatched.

_Sensei… Kushina-san… I'm coming._

He's too hollow to weep when he sees them.

Minato's bearing a bloody smile on his face and Kushina's curled on her side in a fetal position, her long scarlet hair strewn about her and more dull and lifeless than Kakashi thinks he's ever seen it. Blood and amniotic fluid are both still thick on her legs.

A squalling baby, the scars on his cheeks standing out starkly in the autumn morning and the black seal on his belly absolutely lurid, attracts Kakashi's attention and doesn't stop his wailing until the boy picks him up and holds him close to his chest. Only then does Naruto quiet, and go to sleep.

Kakashi doesn't look at the Hokage and the kunoichi from Uzushio again as he makes his way back to the village, and he doesn't disturb their bodies.

He knows it's how Minato and Kushina would have wanted it: one last morning in the sun, together, before all the world falls and they are consigned to the shadows.

They wouldn't want to be torn apart.


End file.
